Kelly Achillo Fiorentino

Kelly Achillo Fiorentino, a retired Operations Engineer for NASA, passed away February 16, 2024 from complications from a fall. He was born on February 2, 1931, in Herkimer, New York, the ninth of eleven children born to the late Dominick and Lucia (Girgenti) Fiorentino. His parents immigrated to the US from Giovinazzo (Bari), Italy, along with his two oldest siblings in 1921.

He joined the Air Force in 1951 and served in the Korean War and flew as a radio operator in RB-29 rescue planes. He was stationed in Guam with his last assignment being Patrick AFB. After being discharged, he returned to Herkimer and then in 1957 returned to PAFB to work for ABMA which later became NASA. After retiring from NASA, he worked for Lockheed Martin at Kennedy Space Center and retired in 1993. During his career, he received numerous honors, and the one he was most proud of was the Astronaut Snoopy Award presented to him by Astronaut Robert Overmyer in 1983.

He played a key role on the first U.S. Explorer 1 launch where he was stationed at San Salvador Island in the Caribbean to initiate the second stage ignition for the Jupiter Missile. He was proud and honored to be mentioned in Dr. Debus’ (the first director of the Kennedy Space Center) memoirs for his role in performing this work. Through his many years with NASA he worked on various programs, from Redstone, Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Apollo, Saturn, Skylab and finally the Space Shuttle program and was involved with over 100 launches.

After retirement, he and his wife traveled to all 50 states and all but one of the provinces of Canada and took a number of cruises and visited family in Italy and South America. In August, 2015 he was honored to attend one of the Space Coast Honor Flights to Washington, DC as a veteran of the Korean War.

Kelly is survived by his wife, Kay (Steverson) Fiorentino, of which they celebrated 60 years of marriage on January 25, 2024. Also, his sons, Greg (Debra Ann), Dominick (Patty), Chuck (Sherri) and Chris (Alisa) and 13 grandchildren, Amanda (Allen Anderson), Rebecca (Michael Russell), Grace (Johnathan Turnage), Matthew, Marissa, Andrew, Anthony, Isabella, Sarah, Sofia, Dominick IV, Giulianna and Gabriel Fiorentino. He is also survived by two great grandchildren, Campbell Kay Turnage and Parker William Fiorentino, and many nieces and nephews and cousins here and in Italy and Argentina where some of the Girgenti family immigrated to in the early 1900s. He is also survived by a number of Steverson sisters and brother-in-law’s and their families.

Kelly is predeceased by his parents; his brothers Louis (Betty), Salvatore (Angie) and Michael (Phyllis) and his sisters, Mary (Jilly), Dollie (Ray), Lena (Joseph), Yolanda (Alex), Adeline (George), Gilda and Shirley (Don). He is survived by his brother-in-law, George LaGess.

A visitation will be held on Thursday, February 22nd from 06:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Wylie-Baxley Funeral Home, 1360 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953. A funeral mass will occur on February 23rd at 10:30 AM at Divine Mercy Catholic Church, 1940 N Courtenay Parkway, Merritt Island, FL 32953 with burial at Florida Memorial Gardens, South U.S. 1 in Rockledge. A celebration of life will follow at GFWC Community Woman’s Club, Cocoa FL.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to your favorite charity in memory of Kelly.